2,724 research outputs found
Asymmetric Protocols for Scalable High-Rate Measurement-Device-Independent Quantum Key Distribution Networks
Measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (MDI-QKD) can
eliminate detector side channels and prevent all attacks on detectors. The
future of MDI-QKD is a quantum network that provides service to many users over
untrusted relay nodes. In a real quantum network, the losses of various
channels are different and users are added and deleted over time. To adapt to
these features, we propose a type of protocols that allow users to
independently choose their optimal intensity settings to compensate for
different channel losses. Such protocol enables a scalable high-rate MDI-QKD
network that can easily be applied for channels of different losses and allows
users to be dynamically added/deleted at any time without affecting the
performance of existing users.Comment: Changed the title to better represent the generality of our method,
and added more discussions on its application to alternative protocols (in
Sec. II, the new Table II, and Appendix E with new Fig. 9). Added more
conceptual explanations in Sec. II on the difference between X and Z bases in
MDI-QKD. Added additional discussions on security of the scheme in Sec. II
and Appendix
Finite-size analysis of continuous-variable measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution
We study the impact of the finite-size effect on the continuous-variable
measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (CV-MDI QKD) protocol,
mainly considering the finite-size effect on the parameter estimation
procedure. The central-limit theorem and maximum likelihood estimation theorem
are used to estimate the parameters. We also analyze the relationship between
the number of exchanged signals and the optimal modulation variance in the
protocol. It is proved that when Charlie's position is close to Bob, the CV-MDI
QKD protocol has the farthest transmission distance in the finite-size
scenario. Finally, we discuss the impact of finite-size effects related to the
practical detection in the CV-MDI QKD protocol. The overall results indicate
that the finite-size effect has a great influence on the secret key rate of the
CV-MDI QKD protocol and should not be ignored.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figure
Detector decoy quantum key distribution
Photon number resolving detectors can enhance the performance of many
practical quantum cryptographic setups. In this paper, we employ a simple
method to estimate the statistics provided by such a photon number resolving
detector using only a threshold detector together with a variable attenuator.
This idea is similar in spirit to that of the decoy state technique, and is
specially suited for those scenarios where only a few parameters of the photon
number statistics of the incoming signals have to be estimated. As an
illustration of the potential applicability of the method in quantum
communication protocols, we use it to prove security of an entanglement based
quantum key distribution scheme with an untrusted source without the need of a
squash model and by solely using this extra idea. In this sense, this detector
decoy method can be seen as a different conceptual approach to adapt a single
photon security proof to its physical, full optical implementation. We show
that in this scenario the legitimate users can now even discard the double
click events from the raw key data without compromising the security of the
scheme, and we present simulations on the performance of the BB84 and the
6-state quantum key distribution protocols.Comment: 27 pages, 7 figure
Noiseless Linear Amplifiers in Entanglement-Based Continuous-Variable Quantum Key Distribution
We propose a method to improve the performance of two entanglement-based
continuous-variable quantum key distribution protocols using noiseless linear
amplifiers. The two entanglement-based schemes consist of an entanglement
distribution protocol with an untrusted source and an entanglement swapping
protocol with an untrusted relay. Simulation results show that the noiseless
linear amplifiers can improve the performance of these two protocols, in terms
of maximal transmission distances, when we consider small amounts of
entanglement, as typical in realistic setups.Comment: Special issue on Quantum Cryptograph
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